Why do Muslims slaughter animals for God?
Perhaps one lesson for Muslims is that they should be cautious about obeying what seems to be the will of God and compare religious commandments with their moral sense.
This week, the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha, a four-day feast that usually includes communal prayer, presents for children and visits to family members and cemeteries.
But the key ritual will be what gives the holiday its name: “Adha” means “sacrifice” in Arabic. Most families who can afford to do so will slaughter an animal — perhaps a sheep, goat, cow or camel. The animal will be blindfolded, gently put down and then slaughtered while the name of God is praised. The meat is consumed by the family and also distributed to neighbours and to the needy.
For some non-Muslims, it may seem puzzling that Muslims engage in such a bloody ritual. But Jews and Christians should be able to relate to the holiday’s origin: the biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac.
This story is in both the Book of Genesis and, with some interesting variations, the Quran. In the story, Abraham receives a shocking injunction from God: He must offer his beloved son as a sacrifice. As a devoted servant of God, he agrees to obey and takes the child to Mount Moriah to slaughter him. At the last moment, God, satisfied with Abraham’s devotion, saves the boy by sending a ram as a substitute sacrifice.
There are minor differences between how the story is told in Islam and how it’s told in Judaism and Christianity – such as the name of the child, which the Quran doesn’t mention and Muslims gradually accepted as Ishmael. But the moral lesson is the same: Abraham’s piety should be celebrated. He was willing to obey God’s order, even if it meant killing his son.
In the Christian tradition, though, this view encountered a bold challenge during the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century German philosopher, criticised Abraham’s blind submission not as an example to emulate but as a failure to avoid. Abraham should have been certain about his own moral sense, Kant argued, and suspicious about an ostensibly divine voice commanding him to do something as cruel as sacrificing his son. Kant wasn’t advocating defying God, necessarily, but he was empowering human reason.
The Muslim world at large has not had its own Enlightenment, but that doesn’t mean Muslims never developed similar ideas. Medieval Islam had its own rationalists who also took an unorthodox position on the sacrifice story for the same reason Kant did: They could not accept that God would have ordered something so cruel.
These were the Mu‘tazilites, members of a theological school that flourished in Iraq around the ninth century, which argued that “good” and “bad” were defined not just by divine verdicts, as their rivals claimed, but also human reason. For example, murder wasn’t bad simply because God told humans so – it was objectively bad. Moreover, God would never do, or order people to do, something that is bad. So, they reasoned, Abraham could not really have been commanded to carry out child sacrifice.
This view was further articulated by Ibn Arabi, a Sufi master from medieval Spain, who highlighted an important nuance in the Quranic version of the story. Unlike the Bible, in which Abraham receives an explicit commandment from God to sacrifice Isaac, the Abraham of the Quran only has a dream in which he sees himself sacrificing his son. He then consults his son, and they together decide that this is a commandment from God. But this was a wrong interpretation, Ibn Arabi argued, and by sending a sacrificial ram at the last moment, “his Lord rescued his son from Abraham’s misapprehension”.
If this take on the sacrifice story is true, then the lesson for Muslims is that they should be cautious about obeying what seems to be the will of God and compare religious commandments with their moral sense. This is especially true for ordinary mortals like us, who learn religious commandments not from direct revelations, as the prophets do, but rather from the transmissions and interpretations of fallible men. Our guide should be not blind obedience, in other words, but reasoned deliberation.
There’s another lesson to keep in mind this Eid al-Adha: The centrality of the sacrifice story in Islam is a reminder of how Islam is a deeply and literally Abrahamic religion. That is why Muslims are going through the same theological conundrums that Jews and Christians have also discussed throughout their histories. And that is why, in the next few days, hundreds of millions of Muslims will honour Abraham with their sacrifices. “Oh our God,” they will also say during their daily prayers, “bless us as you blessed Abraham, and the family of Abraham.”
Mustafa Akyol is a senior fellow on Islam and modernity at the Cato Institute and the author, most recently, of “The Islamic Jesus”. This article was first published in the New York Times.
For some non-Muslims, it may seem puzzling that Muslims engage in such a bloody ritual. But Jews and Christians should be able to relate to the holiday’s origin: the biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac.
This story is in both the Book of Genesis and, with some interesting variations, the Quran. In the story, Abraham receives a shocking injunction from God: He must offer his beloved son as a sacrifice. As a devoted servant of God, he agrees to obey and takes the child to Mount Moriah to slaughter him. At the last moment, God, satisfied with Abraham’s devotion, saves the boy by sending a ram as a substitute sacrifice.
There are minor differences between how the story is told in Islam and how it’s told in Judaism and Christianity – such as the name of the child, which the Quran doesn’t mention and Muslims gradually accepted as Ishmael. But the moral lesson is the same: Abraham’s piety should be celebrated. He was willing to obey God’s order, even if it meant killing his son.
In the Christian tradition, though, this view encountered a bold challenge during the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century German philosopher, criticised Abraham’s blind submission not as an example to emulate but as a failure to avoid. Abraham should have been certain about his own moral sense, Kant argued, and suspicious about an ostensibly divine voice commanding him to do something as cruel as sacrificing his son. Kant wasn’t advocating defying God, necessarily, but he was empowering human reason.
The Muslim world at large has not had its own Enlightenment, but that doesn’t mean Muslims never developed similar ideas. Medieval Islam had its own rationalists who also took an unorthodox position on the sacrifice story for the same reason Kant did: They could not accept that God would have ordered something so cruel.
These were the Mu‘tazilites, members of a theological school that flourished in Iraq around the ninth century, which argued that “good” and “bad” were defined not just by divine verdicts, as their rivals claimed, but also human reason. For example, murder wasn’t bad simply because God told humans so – it was objectively bad. Moreover, God would never do, or order people to do, something that is bad. So, they reasoned, Abraham could not really have been commanded to carry out child sacrifice.
This view was further articulated by Ibn Arabi, a Sufi master from medieval Spain, who highlighted an important nuance in the Quranic version of the story. Unlike the Bible, in which Abraham receives an explicit commandment from God to sacrifice Isaac, the Abraham of the Quran only has a dream in which he sees himself sacrificing his son. He then consults his son, and they together decide that this is a commandment from God. But this was a wrong interpretation, Ibn Arabi argued, and by sending a sacrificial ram at the last moment, “his Lord rescued his son from Abraham’s misapprehension”.
If this take on the sacrifice story is true, then the lesson for Muslims is that they should be cautious about obeying what seems to be the will of God and compare religious commandments with their moral sense. This is especially true for ordinary mortals like us, who learn religious commandments not from direct revelations, as the prophets do, but rather from the transmissions and interpretations of fallible men. Our guide should be not blind obedience, in other words, but reasoned deliberation.
There’s another lesson to keep in mind this Eid al-Adha: The centrality of the sacrifice story in Islam is a reminder of how Islam is a deeply and literally Abrahamic religion. That is why Muslims are going through the same theological conundrums that Jews and Christians have also discussed throughout their histories. And that is why, in the next few days, hundreds of millions of Muslims will honour Abraham with their sacrifices. “Oh our God,” they will also say during their daily prayers, “bless us as you blessed Abraham, and the family of Abraham.”
Mustafa Akyol is a senior fellow on Islam and modernity at the Cato Institute and the author, most recently, of “The Islamic Jesus”. This article was first published in the New York Times.
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kt notes:
Some years ago I wrote a piece titled Did Abraham sacrifice Ishmael or Isaac? Of course I penned this piece from a Judeo(Jewish)-Christian point of view - the following is a short extract of what I had written:
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... regardless of whether it was Ishmael or Isaac who was sacrificed by Abraham, the boy was killed.
There was no angel interceding at the very last minute a la the US 7th Calvary to save the human sacrifice. Biblical scholars believe Abraham sembileh his son. And if the son was the 'only son' then it would have been Ishmael. But then, on the other hand it could well be Isaac.
Richard Elliott Friedman, a biblical scholar and the Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia was one of at least two (Jewish) biblical authors who told us what had likely happened to Isaac or Ishmael. The other biblical scholar has been Tzemah Yoreh.
Putting aside for a moment the argument whether it was Ishmael or Isaac who was the human sacrifice, Friedman wrote his seven reasons why he believes Abraham killed his son at the sacrificial altar, as follows:
sorry son, all Hebrew first born automatically belongs to YHWH and He wants you now
1. In the original sources that come to make up the Torah, Gen 22 is attributed to an author from the Northern Kingdom, nicknamed “E” because he refers to God as Elohim, in contrast to “J” who refers to God as Jehovah, or Yahweh in contemporary use.
In Gen 22:1-10, God is called Elohim, but suddenly an “angel of Yahweh” appears to save Isaac.
2. Gen 22:11-15, when Isaac is rescued by the Angel of Yahweh, also discusses how Abraham names the site after Yahweh in his honor.
3. In 22:16, “he” (is this the angel or Elohim?) praises Abraham because “you did this thing and didn't withhold your son.”
What?!? This seems to describe a moment after which Isaac had been killed. It could refer, of course, to Abraham’s willingness, but it could also mean that he did it.
4. The story concludes with Abraham returning home, without any mention of Isaac.
Tzemah Yoreh (the other biblical scholar) also confirmed the above oddity of 2 (Abraham and son) going out but only one returning.
5. In all of the other writings attributed to “E,” Isaac never again shows up. In fact, the traditions about Isaac even in the other texts are pretty meagre compared to Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.
6. Exodus 24, also from E, presents the story of a revelation at Mount Horeb which has multiple parallels with Gen 22, except that none are found in v. 11-15.
7. There are some midrashic stories that say that Isaac was sacrificed. I personally consider this to be pretty weak evidence since the editing of the Torah took place long before midrashim start showing up on this story, but it nevertheless represents the idea that at least for some, the idea of God actually asking that Abraham sacrificed Isaac was not out of the question.
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Tzemah Yoreh added:
In verse 12, after staying Abraham’s knife-wielding hand in mid-air, the angel of God tells the father of monotheism, “I now know you fear God because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
That phrase, “have not withheld your son,” “could indicate Abraham was merely willing to sacrifice his son, or that he actually did so.”
One hint that it may have been the latter is contained in the names for God used in the story. The Biblical text calls the God, who instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son, “Elohim”. Only when the “angel of God” leaps to Isaac’s rescue does God’s name suddenly change to the four-letter YHWH, a name Jews traditionally do not speak out loud.
Elohim commands the sacrifice; YHWH stops it. But it is once again Elohim who approves of Abraham for having “not withheld your son from me.”
These sorts of variations, rampant throughout the Bible, have led scholars to conclude that different names for God are used by different storylines and editors.
Indeed, Isaac is never again mentioned in an Elohim storyline. In fact, if you only read the parts of Isaac’s life that use the name Elohim, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to see the story as one in which Isaac is killed in the sacrifice and disappears completely from the Biblical story.
Not that the YHWH portions make much of an effort to bring him back to life either. Yes, Isaac seems to fade after the sacrifice, with his life story told in just one chapter, compared to more than a dozen chapters for both Abraham and Jacob.
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So based on Friedman's and Yoreh's analyses, the author of J changed the biblical narration by inserting a J tale to show that an angel saved Isaac (or Ishmael) at the very last minute. The aim of the redaction was to reflect subsequent (1300 years later) Judean rejection of child sacrifice.
whoa there buddy, I'm the US "J" 7th Cavalry
In my post Why 'God' loved Isaac more than Ishmael I asked:
Why is there a leitmotiv in the bible surrounding Abraham and Sarah, of the man and wife pretending to be brother and sister, of a Pharaoh or King taking (or attempting to take) the wife, of God then intervening to return the wife to the husband, and of the husband profiting greatly from the separation? The leitmotiv may be discerned in:
One hint that it may have been the latter is contained in the names for God used in the story. The Biblical text calls the God, who instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son, “Elohim”. Only when the “angel of God” leaps to Isaac’s rescue does God’s name suddenly change to the four-letter YHWH, a name Jews traditionally do not speak out loud.
Elohim commands the sacrifice; YHWH stops it. But it is once again Elohim who approves of Abraham for having “not withheld your son from me.”
These sorts of variations, rampant throughout the Bible, have led scholars to conclude that different names for God are used by different storylines and editors.
Indeed, Isaac is never again mentioned in an Elohim storyline. In fact, if you only read the parts of Isaac’s life that use the name Elohim, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to see the story as one in which Isaac is killed in the sacrifice and disappears completely from the Biblical story.
Not that the YHWH portions make much of an effort to bring him back to life either. Yes, Isaac seems to fade after the sacrifice, with his life story told in just one chapter, compared to more than a dozen chapters for both Abraham and Jacob.
***
So based on Friedman's and Yoreh's analyses, the author of J changed the biblical narration by inserting a J tale to show that an angel saved Isaac (or Ishmael) at the very last minute. The aim of the redaction was to reflect subsequent (1300 years later) Judean rejection of child sacrifice.
whoa there buddy, I'm the US "J" 7th Cavalry
In my post Why 'God' loved Isaac more than Ishmael I asked:
Why is there a leitmotiv in the bible surrounding Abraham and Sarah, of the man and wife pretending to be brother and sister, of a Pharaoh or King taking (or attempting to take) the wife, of God then intervening to return the wife to the husband, and of the husband profiting greatly from the separation? The leitmotiv may be discerned in:
- Abraham and the Pharaoh (Genesis 12:11-20)
- Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 20:2-18) – Sarah was even older by then, around 90.
- Isaac and Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 26: 7-16) – we aren't too sure whether this was the same Abimelech for it was then more than 50 years later, but the King had a chief captain of the army named Phichol (Genesis 26:26) as was in the case of the earlier or Abraham’s Abimelech (Genesis 21:22).
If it was the same Abimelech, then it would suggest that Abraham and Isaac could well be the same person.
Read the last sentence above, which says it would suggest that Abraham and Isaac could well be the same person.
When Abraham sacrificed Isaac (or Ishmael) as a human offering to his Hebrew god, the above observed leitmotiv serves the story gnam gnam, in which Abraham (rather than a dead Isaac/Ishmael) was the father (and not grandfather) of Jacob. Thus the leitmotiv pointed to an Abraham experience rather than that of both Abraham and Isaac.
If we read the Old Testament we would discover that the Hebrew god liked human sacrifice, preferably burnt in a ceremony called olah, with the most notorious being Jephthat sacrificing his daughter to YHWH (Judges 11:29-40) and the most numerous being either all the first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29) or those burnt by King Josiah - And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem - (2 Kings 23:20).
Read the last sentence above, which says it would suggest that Abraham and Isaac could well be the same person.
When Abraham sacrificed Isaac (or Ishmael) as a human offering to his Hebrew god, the above observed leitmotiv serves the story gnam gnam, in which Abraham (rather than a dead Isaac/Ishmael) was the father (and not grandfather) of Jacob. Thus the leitmotiv pointed to an Abraham experience rather than that of both Abraham and Isaac.
If we read the Old Testament we would discover that the Hebrew god liked human sacrifice, preferably burnt in a ceremony called olah, with the most notorious being Jephthat sacrificing his daughter to YHWH (Judges 11:29-40) and the most numerous being either all the first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29) or those burnt by King Josiah - And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem - (2 Kings 23:20).
It is a narrative about infanticide, which was quite common in the ancient world.
ReplyDeleteMethinks The bit about the child actually surviving at the end is a much later "edition", appended by artistic licence , to make the story more palatable.
Anyway, it's a tale from a long bygone era, when life was far more brutish, and killing one's own children was actually practiced.
I think the Buddhist/Taoist practice is more humane and hygienic. Offering cooked food like whole pig with apple in mouth to the Gods.
ReplyDeletewith apple in mouth to the Gods???
DeleteThat's more your Western cuisine
Or the Christian way eating Bread and drinking Wine (symbolising Yesus' Body and Blood) every Sunday in Gereja. Then put some money in the Offertory. No Fuss No Mess. Can go play Golf after service.
ReplyDeleteMuslims, Christians and Jews may hate to admit it, but all these are echoes of Heathen religion with animal sacrifices and event infant sacrifice to the Heathen God's....wakakaka....
ReplyDelete